LAHORE: Chinese Authorities have inaugurated visa application center on Monday to support applicants seeking to travel to China.
China on Monday has started the first visa application service center in Lahore to facilitate travelers seeking to visit China.
The Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan, Yao Jing, inaugurated the visa application center. The list of the attendees to the ceremony included the Chinese Lahore Consul General Long Dingbin, Deputy Consul General Peng Zhengwu, and senior officials of the Punjab government.
Deputy Consul General Zhengwu was talking to media, he called the visa center a hallmark. “Earlier residents of Lahore had to travel to Islamabad to apply for a visa to China,” he stated.
“This new place will provide enormous relief to businessmen and visitors. Lahore is an important city and the new hub of economic activity in Punjab.”
This facilitation center will process ordinary visa applications to China, to the special administrative region of Hong Kong and Macao. However, the final verdict on the application will still be produced by the Chinese embassy in Islamabad.
The Lahore office will only collect the needful documents and forward the requests to the Chinese Embassy in Islamabad and coordinate with the applicants.
The Chinese “embassy will not operate the visa center in Lahore directly. It has outsourced it to a private company,” Zhengwu added.
Around 4,000 applications are processed by China’s embassy in Islamabad per month. The rise in the number of visitors to China has encouraged the country to start a visa processing center in Lahore.
